I would like to thank our funding sources, without which, most of this research would be impossible.

The generous startup funds from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the Department of Soil Science, and HATCH are currently helping me launch the lab’s research program. In addition, I am honoured to have been chosen as the recipient of the O.N. Allen Professorship of Soil Microbiology in the Department of Soil Science. This amazing gift from Ethel K. Allen, memorializing her husband, Oscar N. Allen, will allow our lab to do some particularly exciting research over the next five years. I was also grateful to be named an Elton D. and Carrie R. Aberle Fellow, the support for which allowed us to purchase 13C-labelled CO2 for conducting stable isotope tracing studies.

We are also working on an exciting project funded by the DOE, in collaboration with researchers at UC Berkeley and the JGI, as well as a JGI mini-CSP for metagenomic analyses of soils from a previous paper on soil bacterial community response to pyrogenic organic matter inputs.

In addition, our lab has been funded by the UW-Madison Microbiome Initiative, through which we are constructing the “Microbiotron“, and the UW-Madison Data Science Initiative, where we are working with Dr. Amy Willis at University of Washington, and Dr. Karl Broman here at UW-Madison to improve representation of uncertainty in microbial community sequencing data. We are also collaborating with three researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville through a CERANR grant to assess the effects of prescribed fire on soil properties and vegetation in restored prairies.

In particular, I would like to thank NSERC/CRSNG  for supporting my development as a young scientist. I was first engaged with field work, experimental design, data analysis, and paper writing as an undergraduate through three USRA grants, where I studied topics as diverse as zooplankton ecology, plant ecology, and environmental impact and life cycle assessment. Following that, I was grateful to receive two years of funding during my M.S. degree under a PGS-M, and two years of funding during my Ph.D. under a PGS-D, while I studied at Cornell. I am eager to give back to my country through my work as a scientist throughout my career, even though I am based in the US right now.

Additionally, Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future contributed substantially to my progress while at Cornell. The first grant I helped write upon arriving at Cornell supported a semester of M.S. work, and after that, the Cross-Scale Biogeochemistry and Climate small grants in conjunction with the Biogeochemistry and Climate IGERT program were instrumental in funding my research as well as developing my skills as a reviewer. The ACSF was also an important supporter of my travel to the UN climate conferences.

While in Woods Hole in the summer of 2012, I had the amazing experience of taking part in the Microbial Diversity summer training course at the Marine Biological Laboratory. This course provided me with a whole suite of totally new skills in molecular techniques, bioinformatics, and microbial culturing, which I hope will take my research in a new and exciting direction. This would not have been possible without the support of the Pfizer Inc. Endowed Scholarship, the Milton L. Shifman Endowed Scholarship, and the U.S. Department of Energy grant to the Microbial Diversity course, as well as the Cornell Crop and Soil Science department’s summer funding support. Additionally, I would like to thank the Moore Foundation for the support to travel to Denver, CO, to present my findings at the American Society of Microbiology’s annual meeting.

Additional funding sources include:

Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (NSF): National award to Ph.D. students for expanding dissertation research

Toward Sustainability Foundation Grant: funds innovative research, teaching and outreach projects involving organics and sustainability in farm and food systems, and managed landscapes

Sigma Xi Grants in aid of Research: The program awards grants to students from all areas of the sciences and engineering

Andrew W. Mellon Student Research Grants: provides funds to support student research relating to ecological, environmental, and natural resources issues

Canadian Soil Science Society Student Travel Award: awarded to a graduate student presenting research at the CSSS meeting

Soil Ecology Society Student Travel Award: awarded to a graduate student presenting research at the SES meeting

AGU Student Travel Award: awarded to a graduate student presenting research at the AGU meeting

Barbara McClintock Award: awarded to a graduate student in plant science with unique and outstanding contributions in research and teaching

MacDonald/Musgrave Award: awarded to a graduate student exhibiting excellence in crop and soil science